SHOW HIDDEN FILES FOR MAC FOR FREE
SHOW HIDDEN FILES FOR MAC MAC

In the window that opens, type “~/Library”.

Click on the Go menu and choose Go to Folder.

Click on it.Īlternatively, do this to view your Library folder:

You should see that in the dropdown menu, Library appears below Home.

Open a new Finder window and navigate to your user folder (Tip: if it’s not in the sidebar, go to the Finder menu, choose Preferences, click Sidebar and check the box next to your Home folder).

There are a couple of methods for making your ~/Library folder visible.

To re-hide the files and folders, hold down Command-Shift.

You should now see lots of files and folders whose name starts with “.” become visible.

Click on Macintosh HD, or whatever you’ve called your startup drive if you’ve renamed it.

SHOW HIDDEN FILES FOR MAC MAC

Open a new Finder window and click on the name of your Mac under ‘Devices’ in the sidebar.

If you still want to view hidden files on your Mac, you need to go to the Finder and do the following: CleanMyMac X scans your Mac, identifies this system junk and allows you to quickly and easily get rid of it, potentially several gigabytes of disk space.

They just sit there clogging up your hard drive. Many of these files are created and used then not needed anymore.

SHOW HIDDEN FILES FOR MAC FOR FREE

You can download CleanMyMac X for free here.ĬleanMyMac X will also allow you to get rid of all the hidden files you no longer need. That will make it easy to remove all the files associated with an application with one click. If your goal in viewing, for example ~/Library is so you can manually delete application support files for a program you’ve uninstalled, consider using a dedicated uninstaller like CleanMyMac X. The data they contain could cause havoc if you delete or alter it and don’t know what you’re doing. Also, if they were all visible, your Mac would look horribly cluttered.īefore you make your Mac show hidden files, it’s important to remember they’ve been hidden for a reason. In addition, there’s no real reason for most users to see or access them. Mostly, though, it’s because they contain data critical to the smooth running of your Mac and that you shouldn’t interfere with. There are a number of reasons files and folders are hidden. The files themselves contain data like access rights and privileges for files and folders, application support files, and preferences. For that reason, you can’t use a “.” at the start of a regular file name, otherwise OS X will hide it. In fact, the convention of naming them starting with a “.” comes from Unix. The hidden files are a throwback to macOS’ Unix roots. In this article, we’ll tell you how you can view hidden files on your Mac and make your Library folder visible. Both these Library folders are hidden, but inside them are folders and files that hold things like preferences for apps. Many of these files are in your Mac’s main Library folder or in the ~/Library folder, which is in your User folder. These files and folders are all supposed to be there. Thousands of them in fact, in the form of hidden files and folders lurking on its hard drive or SSD. But to help you do it all by yourself, we’ve gathered our best ideas and solutions below.įeatures described in this article refer to the MacPaw site version of CleanMyMac X. So here's a tip for you: Download CleanMyMac to quickly solve some of the issues mentioned in this article.

Show hidden files for mac